My advice is if you don't want to do a lot of math or run simulations, armory a protection warrior in a top 25 guild and see what he's doing. Chances are if he's in that guild he's done his research already so you don't have to.

Haha, not bad advice. :P

That said, be careful – it’s common that top guilds are doing some strange things in accordance with what their healers/raid group are trying to achieve, and that could well be bizarre enough that those of us on the lower rungs of the raiding ladder shouldn’t try.

Though not a tank, the Holy paladin from <Premonition> that was stacking mastery is a good example of this.

My advice is if you don't want to do a lot of math or run simulations, armory a protection warrior in a top 25 guild and see what he's doing. Chances are if he's in that guild he's done his research already so you don't have to.

Agree to an extent, this week at the least. Not so much once Heroic modes come out as the top 25 people will undoubtedly be trying weird combos to compensate for pushing heroic content whilst undergeared. I know for general items and gearing this week I was looking at people like Sco, Kungen, and Grafarion among others to get at least a good idea of "This item is an upgrade for me" or "I could reforge this".

That said, be careful – it’s common that top guilds are doing some strange things in accordance with what their healers/raid group are trying to achieve, and that could well be bizarre enough that those of us on the lower rungs of the raiding ladder shouldn’t try.

Though not a tank, the Holy paladin from <Premonition> that was stacking mastery is a good example of this.

And more often than not, they do some weird things like stacking stamina over all things simply because their healers can handle it.

Agree to an extent, this week at the least. Not so much once Heroic modes come out as the top 25 people will undoubtedly be trying weird combos to compensate for pushing heroic content whilst undergeared. I know for general items and gearing this week I was looking at people like Sco, Kungen, and Grafarion among others to get at least a good idea of "This item is an upgrade for me" or "I could reforge this".

Wait, Kungen didnt quit for good? Hooray, today is a good day!

People take stupidity to a whole new level when they sit in front of a computer.

And more often than not, they do some weird things like stacking stamina over all things simply because their healers can handle it.

Wait, Kungen didnt quit for good? Hooray, today is a good day!

He came out of retirement and reformed Nihilum (or however you spell it). I just know he was a damn good Prot Warrior, I'm not a big fan or anything but I try to know who the best of the best of my class/spec are

The best part about this conversation is the 3 warriors mentioned are all gearing in a different strategy at the moment...

Hopefully that indicates there is no more "one true way" and it's up to personal preference, raid composition, and tactics. I know that would make a lot happier if I could, within reason, gear gem and enchant in a way that works best for me and my team, rather than study theorycrafting and EJ to see what everyone else is doing and go the cookie-cutter route.

Sincerely, I'm rather sold on mastery>hit/exp (had enough to softcap both, even giving priority to mastery)>dodge/parry. At this point on the gear stage, being able to maintain such an high block uptime on 2tank bosses (most of them), and having 50% crit blocks... I feel really solid. There is little downtime, and is easily covered by 10 seconds of demo shout, let the rage hit ~100 and SBlock come off CD, and go again at it.

Math + feel is enough to me to remain with that reforge/gemming (no stamina on gems. Using one trinket of stamina, if needed I can put on a second)

Hopefully that indicates there is no more "one true way" and it's up to personal preference, raid composition, and tactics. I know that would make a lot happier if I could, within reason, gear gem and enchant in a way that works best for me and my team, rather than study theorycrafting and EJ to see what everyone else is doing and go the cookie-cutter route.

There are still some annoying things about warriors right at the moment but, in general, that’s what they aimed at and that’s what they got. There are at least a couple of ways to go, both are valid, and both are attainable.

There are two schools of thought when it comes it mitigating physical damage.

If you use shield block often, mastery is the king stat. Dodge and parry are next though less valuable because you'll be blocking most attacks that get through anyway. Hit and expertise aren't needed much as you usually have enough rage to get full shield block uptime, extra rage just means the occasional shield barrier.

Other warriors forsake shield block entirely and use shield barrier all the time. In this case, dodge and parry are best for mitigating damage. Mastery does little since you rarely block to begin with. Hit and expertise can be a bit better since, unlike the shield block warrior, your finisher usage is not cool down capped. Every rage you earn can be pumped into barrier.

Neither strategy is better necessarily. The sims I've seen show that the shield barrier warrior tends to take less damage on average, but that his damage is spikier. The shield block warrior takes a bit more total damage but it is smoothed out. Pick one approach and go for it.

Also note that the above only applies to physical damage. The shield barrier approach looks better and better as more unblockable damage comes in, but I don't believe that there are many large unblockable tank spikes in this tier.

There are two schools of thought when it comes it mitigating physical damage.

If you use shield block often, mastery is the king stat. Dodge and parry are next though less valuable because you'll be blocking most attacks that get through anyway. Hit and expertise aren't needed much as you usually have enough rage to get full shield block uptime, extra rage just means the occasional shield barrier.

Other warriors forsake shield block entirely and use shield barrier all the time. In this case, dodge and parry are best for mitigating damage. Mastery does little since you rarely block to begin with. Hit and expertise can be a bit better since, unlike the shield block warrior, your finisher usage is not cool down capped. Every rage you earn can be pumped into barrier.

Neither strategy is better necessarily. The sims I've seen show that the shield barrier warrior tends to take less damage on average, but that his damage is spikier. The shield block warrior takes a bit more total damage but it is smoothed out. Pick one approach and go for it.

Also note that the above only applies to physical damage. The shield barrier approach looks better and better as more unblockable damage comes in, but I don't believe that there are many large unblockable tank spikes in this tier.

This cannot be stressed enough. IMO the choice depends on your group and healers. I personally think a smoother damage intake is overall better (that's why we went for CTC cap in Cata) but it's up to the individual.

There are two schools of thought when it comes it mitigating physical damage.

If you use shield block often, mastery is the king stat. Dodge and parry are next though less valuable because you'll be blocking most attacks that get through anyway. Hit and expertise aren't needed much as you usually have enough rage to get full shield block uptime, extra rage just means the occasional shield barrier.

Other warriors forsake shield block entirely and use shield barrier all the time. In this case, dodge and parry are best for mitigating damage. Mastery does little since you rarely block to begin with. Hit and expertise can be a bit better since, unlike the shield block warrior, your finisher usage is not cool down capped. Every rage you earn can be pumped into barrier.

Neither strategy is better necessarily. The sims I've seen show that the shield barrier warrior tends to take less damage on average, but that his damage is spikier. The shield block warrior takes a bit more total damage but it is smoothed out. Pick one approach and go for it.

Also note that the above only applies to physical damage. The shield barrier approach looks better and better as more unblockable damage comes in, but I don't believe that there are many large unblockable tank spikes in this tier.

This makes the most sense to me. I think running heroics with pugs the smoother damage intake is definately the way to go, but if your raid group has insane healers the spikier damage intake with less overall damege could be more benificial in the long run for mana conservation.

This makes the most sense to me. I think running heroics with pugs the smoother damage intake is definately the way to go, but if your raid group has insane healers the spikier damage intake with less overall damege could be more benificial in the long run for mana conservation.

If raiding in wow history has anything to say about it, the "mana conservation" method is usually once things are more or less on farm and the tanks outgear the content.

If raiding in wow history has anything to say about it, the "mana conservation" method is usually once things are more or less on farm and the tanks outgear the content.

I actually consider it to be the exact opposite. Mana conservation comes into play when you're raiding with 1 less healer than normal in order to push enough dps to make enrage timers during progression.

With that in mind, along with how much unblockable damage there seems to be in this tier, I'm ignoring mastery altogether. Shield Barrier is quite effective against bosses like Elegon when a large portion of the damage you're taking is burst spell damage. Pool up 120 rage and blow two back to back 130k barriers and your health bar never even moves for a breath.

There are two schools of thought when it comes it mitigating physical damage.

If you use shield block often, mastery is the king stat. Dodge and parry are next though less valuable because you'll be blocking most attacks that get through anyway. Hit and expertise aren't needed much as you usually have enough rage to get full shield block uptime, extra rage just means the occasional shield barrier.

Other warriors forsake shield block entirely and use shield barrier all the time. In this case, dodge and parry are best for mitigating damage. Mastery does little since you rarely block to begin with. Hit and expertise can be a bit better since, unlike the shield block warrior, your finisher usage is not cool down capped. Every rage you earn can be pumped into barrier.

Neither strategy is better necessarily. The sims I've seen show that the shield barrier warrior tends to take less damage on average, but that his damage is spikier. The shield block warrior takes a bit more total damage but it is smoothed out. Pick one approach and go for it.

Also note that the above only applies to physical damage. The shield barrier approach looks better and better as more unblockable damage comes in, but I don't believe that there are many large unblockable tank spikes in this tier.

Agree here, I really only pool rage for 60rage barriers on the Stone Guard (while tanking 2) and Elegon's breath, all other bosses I tend to favor Shield Block. The breath is like any other dragon breath and it works wonder's to absorb the majority of his breath, and with my AP skyrocketing from vengeance on double dogs the barrier does a pretty sexy job there.

Agree here, I really only pool rage for 60rage barriers on the Stone Guard (while tanking 2) and Elegon's breath, all other bosses I tend to favor Shield Block. The breath is like any other dragon breath and it works wonder's to absorb the majority of his breath, and with my AP skyrocketing from vengeance on double dogs the barrier does a pretty sexy job there.

If you’re running logs, take a look at the damage you take from single-target encounters while using Shield Block compared to Shield Barrier. Even when the damage is physical, I’m slowly coming round to the idea that barriers are for bosses and blocks are for trash.

If you go avoidance/absorb style, you will be taking more spiky damage, which means healers will be panic healing you with more flash heals and going oom faster. If you are shield block mastery tanking, you take smoother damage, and healers will feel more comfortable using their efficient heals and their mana (and you) will last longer. thats always been the point of smoothing out tank damage; to make healers not need spam expensive inefficient heals.

If you go avoidance/absorb style, you will be taking more spiky damage, which means healers will be panic healing you with more flash heals and going oom faster. If you are shield block mastery tanking, you take smoother damage, and healers will feel more comfortable using their efficient heals and their mana (and you) will last longer. thats always been the point of smoothing out tank damage; to make healers not need spam expensive inefficient heals.

The “bleed” gearing strategy that smooths out damage, when compared to the “TDR” gearing strategy that promotes spikes, isn’t a finite comparison because the first implies hit and expertise caps (or close to), while the second assumes you’re ignoring threat stats.

Building hit, expertise and mastery while prioritising barriers, however, promotes far less spikes than the dodge and parry version would suggest.

At end its all come down to this : what defensive ability are you using to mitigate dmg. Shield Block or Shield Barrier.

If any1 here raided Vaults in this reset, they could see that using Shield Barrier (especialy with high vengence) reduce more dmg then using Shield Block especialy with all this dots and magic dmg tanks getting.

I only saw first 3 bosses in Vaults, but on any of them Shield Barrier was supperior in terms of mitigation compared to Shield Block.
As warrior I was having 2/3 dmg taken of paladin and druid tank who are equaly geared to mine warrior.

So maths and sims are great, but in pratice you are going for what work best for you. Fornow Im not using Shield Block at all, only Shield Barrier so mastery dont have that high value and Kaeleena points are quite valid. Having high hit/expertise to be able use next Shield Barrier asap when previous is destroyed is more important then mastery.

And no, Im not dieing in raids, and Im taking visible less dmg then druid or paladin tank (havnt raided with DK), and healers need less mana to heal me.

Im not saying its best way but its working for me atm (dungeons hcs and normal bosses raids). Bosses would need hit way way harder to make me use Shield Block or there would need to be more then 2-3 targets hitting me at once.